


burn marks and movie tropes

by eggstasy



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 13, character death is offscreen, lots of smaller appearances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6000001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scars are kind of cool. He's already got bunch so what are a dozen more? The puffy little rectangular burns had healed quickly enough, so he couldn't complain. Sarge is still on life support and Donut's got tremors in his hands that won't go away, so what's a few burn marks? It's fucking nothing, that's what.</p><p>“It's not your fault.”</p><p>“Hey purple kid, you mind dimming the light show over there? I'm trying to sleep.”</p><p>And then there's that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burn marks and movie tropes

“Tucker?”

It had taken three hours to get all of the armor off of him. Two minutes to put it on, and three hours to take it off. The opposite of how Tucker usually operates actually; tell him to get dressed and watch it take half a day, but when there's nookie to be had? The clothes are already gone. He always had a line for that one too, something like “baby my love for you burned 'em right off” or something else equally suave. Or stupid, as Wash liked to call it.

The problem was that a lot of the seals had overheated and fused together as a result of overclocking the enhancements. They hadn't really had a choice; Sarge went down five minutes into the firefight, taking three bullets meant for Grif, Lopez was out after a rage-fueled suicide run after that and Caboose wrenched his knee _tripping_ , of all the goddamn ways he could've incapacitated himself. They should just be grateful he didn't shoot anybody in the back on his way down, honestly. It had left them terribly short staffed for a last stand and the laser Simmons rigged had only a few shots left, so if Tucker hadn't ignored the suit's alarms-

Well. Scars are kind of cool. He's already got bunch so what are a dozen more? The puffy little rectangular burns had healed quickly enough, so he couldn't complain. Sarge is still on life support and Donut's got tremors in his hands that won't go away, so what's a few burn marks? It's fucking nothing, that's what.

“It's not your fault.”

“Hey purple kid, you mind dimming the light show over there? I'm trying to sleep.”

And then there's that.

 

* * *

 

Wash had been absolutely livid. Tucker had seen Wash look a lot of types of angry; he'd seen cold anger, he'd seen paranoid ex-special ops anger (which is very similar to cold anger but usually with more leveling of guns into people's faces), he'd seen his frantic screechy slide-whistle voice anger where he'd 'had it up to _here,_ up to to _here_ I tell you' with their antics. That was usually when they'd go quiet and then let Caboose break the silence, because whatever he said would either make Wash laugh, leave or become so distracted he'd forget he was angry.

For being a super secret cool agent guy soldier dude, Wash had a lot of embarrassingly gigantic emotions, but this one was different. Tucker submitted his report before he told Wash anything and while that was probably a mistake, it's not one he regrets. Writing it down had been easier than saying it out loud.

It kind of sucked when Wash came storming over to him, datapad in hand and his face burning bright and angry, the rims of his eyes red, the lines of his mouth hard and furious. The worst was that he hadn't been angry at Tucker. He'd been angry at someone he couldn't be angry at, someone who wasn't there to take it, someone who had left him with _so much baggage_ because neither of them had wanted to dig it out and sort through it.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing he shouts, like he hadn't been asking that in a normal tone of voice for the past week anyway.

“Wash, Christ.” Tucker doesn't know when he became the calm one in this relationship. Wait, he knows, about five seconds ago, when feeling anything more than a crushing _lack_ of emotion became a task of gargantuan proportions. “I'm fine. Just weird dreams now and then.”

“Dreams like what,” Wash demands. _Tell me. I need to know._ That's the tone he's been taking more and more often since the Staff of Charon. Like if he knows every grisly detail of what happened it'll hurt less or something.

Tucker rubs at his eyes. “Just dreams, Wash.”

Because Washington won't leave it alone, Tucker tells him about the ones Church left him. About a little girl with black ribbons in her hair, black because that's her mother's favorite color. About lighting candles three, four and five on the fifth night. The ones where he's remembering the screaming are the hard ones, but Tucker feels it all through a double filter so when he wakes up it's just with a gasp. It's not that bad. It's not that bad.

He doesn't tell Wash about the ones Church didn't leave, the ones that are just his. The kid knows about them (and that was another thing for Washington to hate, that they'd volunteered to take the leftover pieces, that there were leftover pieces at _all_ ). The kid sees all of them right there with him, maybe how the kid feels even _influences_ them because Tucker will wake up with his pillow wet and his eyes sore when there's no reason, no reason he should've cried. It's not like he hasn't seen people die before. It's nothing new.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Grey has some grief counseling sessions with him that he hates, then doesn't care about, then hates again. The hate comes in cycles but the kid is _persuasive_ and he sounds too much like Junior when he's sad except for the fact that Junior sounds like a gigantic alien and the kid is literally the length of his palm. “I remember when Junior was as small as you,” Tucker says one time in the middle of a session, to the kid, to avoid answering Dr. Grey's probing questions.

“Umm...but he wasn't? I don't think he was ever as small as me.”

“No? ...shit, you're right. Well don't blame me, I was in a coma. I wouldn't remember how big he was at first so you'll have to ask-” Tucker stops. Clears his throat. “You'll have to ask Doc.”

The kid shrinks into himself, light dimming. “Okay. Okay, I'll ask Doc.”

Dr. Grey writes an awful lot for never getting an answer.

 

* * *

 

Two of them are shut into storage. They aren't even given enough processing power to truly be 'awake' like the others are. “They're never coming out,” Carolina had said in that voice of hers, that hurt and wounded voice that she delivers with a verbal fist to the mouth to make it sound like aggression. She's aggressively protecting what's left. She's aggressively denying the dark spots of her past. Wash is doing a lot of that also so Tucker's pretty sure it was like some kind of Freelancer requirement, a crash course on replacing all negative emotions with anger and ball-kicking. Tex probably drafted all the course assignments. Midterms would have consisted of finding an ass to kick and then firmly, resolutely slamming it into the ground while refusing to think about your daddy who left your mommy or the lack of hugs you had as a child, something like that.

“I don't even have anyone to say this shit to,” Tucker mourns aloud. That's maybe the worst. The lack of audience.

The kid winks into existence at his shoulder. “Well _I_ think it's kind of funny.”

“Thanks, kid. At least one of us does.”

 

* * *

 

The funerals are too hard to go to, so he doesn't. Donut doesn't go either, Sarge _can't_ go so Doc is the only one there, probably the only blob of color since he won't go anywhere without his armor now. Tucker almost attends just because he can't stand the idea of _Doc_ being the sole representative of the Reds and Blues, but when it comes time to get out of bed he can't muster the energy.

“Wanna watch movies together?”

Tucker rolls over and props his chin up on a hand. “...sure. What kind of movies?”

“I like action movies! You like action movies, right?”

“I like making _fun_ of action movies.”

“That's good too!”

The kid has horrible taste, really awful taste in movies and Tucker knows where he gets it from. When the bad guy does something particularly cliche and the kid whispers _diabolical,_ Tucker wants to laugh and cry and punch the wall. He hangs onto that, that bundle of confusing feelings because it's the first time he's felt something so strong when he wasn't asleep and while it hurts, it's _there_ unlike so many other things. The empty cavern that once had everything he was slowly starts to fill and it might not ever be full again but it's at least working, at least the pipes are still on.

 

* * *

 

The other lieutenants put in the paperwork to transfer into Tucker's squad four weeks after Charon.

Tucker accepts them immediately.

 

* * *

 

“Are you fucking kidding me right now Smith?”

“Sir! I believe that we would have the tactical advantage if we simply moved _before_ the scouts were to tell us whether or not it's safe. It's the element of surprise at its _finest._ ”

Tucker drops his head into his hands. “The element of surprise only works if your fucking _enemy_ doesn't expect it, not if your own fucking _squad_ is surprised! _With death!_ Oh my god. Shut up, your idea privileges are being revoked.” He sighs, with the full force of his lungs, when he sees Jensen's hand shoot up into the air. “Yes, Jensen. Go ahead.”

She loops her arms around her knees. “Sir, may I just say that I'm glad you decided to include us in this training exercise? We're really learning a lot about each other and we appreciate it.”

“Yeah she doesn't speak for me.”

“Bitters, go run some laps.”

“What?! Why? And laps _where,_ we're in a cave.”

“I don't care Bitters! Find a fucking stalagmite and lap it, I don't want to listen to your voice anymore!”

“Y'know, I never could figure out the difference between stalag _mite_ , and-”

“Oh my fucking god Palomo, if you don't _shut up-_ ”

“Stalagmites _might_ eventually touch the ceiling, whereas stalag _tites_ have to _cling tightly_ lest they fall.”

“What?” Palomo tilts his head back. “ _Ohhh._ ”

“Smith, you go run laps for knowing something I don't. Actually, all of you go do it.” Tucker waves his hands at their protests. “Shut up! I don't care! Go fucking run laps and don't stop until I tell you!”

He watches the lieutenants attempt to lap the same stalagmite, bumping into each other and complaining loudly (save for Smith, who is always happy to follow an order). The kid's purple glow lights up the cave around them when he blinks on to sit on top of Tucker's shoulder. “They're funny.”

Tucker folds his arms. “Yeah. I guess they kind of are.”

“Do you like them?”

“I don't really _like_ people, kid. I tolerate people, and then I find other people sexy. Which is not a talk I'm having with you.”

“Aww.”

“But...yeah, I dunno. Maybe.” Smith jogs tight circles around a rock formation while Jensen stumbles after him, Bitters ambling along and Palomo running in the opposite direction for 'extra wind resistance' he yells when Bitters snaps at him. Tucker thinks about breaking it up. Decides against it. “They're all right.”

 

* * *

 

Tucker has a dream from which he doesn't wake up gasping.

_Hey. You ever wonder why we're here?_

_Why're you asking me? You guys are the ones gone._

_I guess you're right about that. Makes the question kind of stupid, doesn't it?_

_Is this the cryptic closure dream? Am I having a tropey fucking dream right now?_

_Yeah probably._

_Grif! What the fuck, don't **tell** him he's having a tropey dream you moron, he has to take something from this!_

_I had a ropey dream once. It was like, there were so many ropes. They were licorice ropes and they were all the sailors used on their ships. I was a pirate. A **candy** pirate._

_Shit man, that sounds like my kinda dream._

_Oh my god. This is a fucking mess. He's gonna wake up confused as f-_

Tucker wakes up. “My head is fucked up.”

Theta pinches his fingers together. “A little.” He swings his legs, perched on the edge of Tucker's nightstand, and leans back on his hands. “But that's okay. I'm used to it.”

Tucker laughs, and laughs and laughs because he can feel the joy blossoming in the back of his skull at the sound of it. “Goddamn kiddo, _I'll fucking bet._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this to make [ablankshot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ablankshot/pseuds/ablankshot) cry  
> but then i cry  
> i have betrayed my own heart


End file.
